


K5- Workshop Troubles

by thudworm



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2019 [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Bot Feels, Fluff, Gen, Tony Stark & His Bots, workshop trouble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 19:39:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17773010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thudworm/pseuds/thudworm
Summary: All Tony wants is a chance to rest. But DUM-E has other ideas.





	K5- Workshop Troubles

**Author's Note:**

> My first fill for the 2019 Tony Stark Bingo!
> 
> It’s been almost a year since I last wrote anything, so please be kind and drop me a comment.

All Tony wanted to do was finish the prototype of the newest model StarkPhone, take a long shower, and then collapse into bed. Food was maybe somewhere in that list too. And a drink or three.  
He was approaching the 60-hours-without-sleep mark, but the deadline for the StarkPhone prototype was the board meeting tomorrow afternoon and Tony had no desired to be yelled at by Pepper for missing it. Again.  
He would have had it finished by now, except for SHIELD’s inability to deal with minor threats. There was no way that that group of super villain wannabes were worthy of the Avengers to take them down, but even though it had been an easier mission than half the training exercises Cap put them through, Tony had taken a hit to the left boot strong enough to cause an issue with the repulsor, and some serious pain.  
So even though all Tony wanted to do was sleep for a full day, the repair to the armour also had to be dealt with, because the universe was a bitch like that. A sure fire way to guarantee he would need the armour was to not have it ready to use.  
The board meeting tomorrow was happening here in California, which was why he was staying here at the Malibu house for the week instead of back home at the Tower with the rest of the Avengers.  
Standing at the top of the stairs, faced with the painful prospect of navigating his way down without falling on his face, Tony was really regretting his decision. The one positive about staying here was the opportunity to spend time with his bots.  
The whole ‘living in New York now’ thing was turning out to be a lot less temporary than he had originally predicted. He knew how much he had missed his bots, but seeing how much they had missed him too was making him feel guilty about leaving them for so long. He really should arrange to bring them back to New York with him, but that was a logistical nightmare to even think about. Transporting them by road or by plane were both bad options because neither DUM-E nor U dealt well with enclosed spaces, or with having their mobility restricted.  
Tony managed to make his way down the stairs without breaking his neck, and immediately tripped over a coffee cup that had been left on the floor, just inside the doorway. He picked it up and then dropped it again as he took in the state of the workshop.  
The sink in the kitchenette had been left running, leaving the entire area flooded; what looked like every fire extinguisher in the shop had been set off, coating half the cars with foam and powder; none of the tools were where they should be; and the half assembled phone prototypes Tony had been working on before the call to Assemble had been moved from the workbench to who-knew-where.  
“JARVIS! What the hell happened in here? Was there an intruder alert you didn’t tell me about?”  
“No, Sir. No one has entered the workshop since you left. I am afraid there is an issue with DUM-E.”  
Tony carefully made his way to where the chair had been shifted to and sat down heavily, immediately regretting it when he discovered the pile of screws that had been dumped there the hard way. “I’m probably going to regret asking this, but. Why?”  
“It seems that he was attempting to follow news coverage of the Avengers callout, but mistakenly interacted with spam in the comments section and managed to download several viruses and other malware.”  
“Of course he did,” Tony said with a sigh and rolled the chair over to the desk. “Bring up DUM-E’s coding so I can get him back to normal. Not that DUM-E could ever be considered normal. Yeah, you heard me you useless bucket of bolts,” Tony called out to DUM-E. “More trouble than you’re worth.”  
It was the work of several hours to first figure out what the hell DUM-E had downloaded onto himself, and then figure out how to undo the damage without simply restoring from an older backup, which was a last resort if all else failed. Malware aimed at standard household computers interacted very strangely with DUM-E’s unique coding, which was why the workshop was in its current state.  
“There. Done.” Tony straightened up and groaned as stiff muscles protested being made to stretch.  
“Please, please, please tell me U is fine. I don’t think I could handle having to do this twice, on top of everything else I still need to do. Lie to me if you have to JARVIS.” Tony begged.  
U had seemed fine when Tony came downstairs, and even brought Tony an ice pack for his ankle, but that was no guarantee there was nothing wrong with him.  
“U is completely normal, Sir. I have taken the liberty of ordering food to be delivered, it is expected to arrive in approximately 15 minutes. May I suggest you take this opportunity to take the shower you mentioned earlier, so that you may make your way to bed as soon as possible.”  
“No can do, JARVIS. Now that DUM-E’s out of the way I still need to fix the Iron Man boot and get the StarkPhone prototypes up to scratch.”  
“Sir, both of those are unnecessary. I am quite capable of remotely piloting the Mark IX, and will do so now. If there is an emergency requiring Iron Man’s attention it is far more essential for you to be properly rested than to have the latest armour ready. The StarkPhone prototypes were not harmed by DUM-E and are significantly more advanced than necessary for this stage of the development process. Now that DUM-E has been returned to usual functioning I will supervise the cleanup process of the workshop. There is nothing needing your attention that cannot wait until after you have rested.”  
Tony could tell this was an argument he was unlikely to win. “Fine. I’ll do things your way. But if Pepper is pissed at me I’ll be sending her your way.”

**Author's Note:**

> This line from JARVIS was one of the first lines I had down as I was writing, but it didn’t end up fitting into the fic. So I’m sharing it here at the end, because I like it:
> 
> “If I may, Sir? Consider yourself fortunate that DUM-E is not, in fact, your biological child. A virus in that case would not be cured as easily, and would likely result in worse messes to clean up after.”


End file.
